


your lips, my lips, apocalypse

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Series: gendrya smutverse [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Barman Gendry bc that's what dreams are made of, Childhood Friends, Choking, Dom!Gendry, F/M, Light Dom/sub, Mutual Pining, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Reunion Sex, Sub!Arya, alternating pov-s, but just a tiny bit of a plot tbh, pure self-indulgent smut, so tiny it's almost non-existent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 05:09:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21314689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: Isn't growing up to be smoking hot and seducing one's childhood crush some kind of universal life goal? Because for Arya... it kinda feels like that.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: gendrya smutverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652332
Comments: 62
Kudos: 403





	your lips, my lips, apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally no excuse, besides the fact that Joe Dempsie's ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is the stuff of dreams. Also, if anyone of you doesn't think Alpha Male Gendry turns Arya on, you haven't been watching s8 ''it's strong enough'' scene nearly enough times. 
> 
> Yana, my girl, you are the best. Thanks for being the best writing buddy as always <3 (and also for sending me some truly inspirational materials)

>   
_'Cause you hold me like a woman_  
_In a way I've never felt before_  
_And it makes me wanna hold on_  
_And it makes me wanna be all yours_
> 
>   
-Guys My Age, Hey Violet

Arya’s evening is truly an exceptionally boring one.

Dany dragged her out for a bit of clubbing before their finals next week but soon disappeared with a handsome foreigner whom she will surely fuck and forget the next morning like a cold-hearted heart-breaker she is, thus leaving Arya alone in a crowded bar downtown, desperate for a smoke and trying to avoid the wandering hands of her dance partners. She’s decided to pretend to have fun on her own until one a.m. sharp and then come home to her slippers and wine and the good place re-watch, but, with how spectacularly it’s going so far, she is not sure she will make it until midnight.

Maybe alcohol will help. It’s not the healthiest coping mechanism, but honestly, who cares.

‘’Whiskey with coke, please. And a slice of lemon.’’ She shots to the barman without sparing him a glance, mindlessly scanning the crowd on the dance floor until a low, surprised voice makes her whip her head around in shock.

‘’Arya? Is that really you?’’

Blue, blue eyes, so clear and striking. Blue eyes pulling her under, drowning her in the incoming flood of memories; of sleepovers and game nights, Harry Potter movie marathons, microwave-made popcorn. Of messy dark hair, grease-stained t-shirts and gentle smiles - of the first boy she has ever had a crush on.

‘’Gendry.’’ She breathes out.

Somehow, he looks simultaneously the same as in her memory and way, way better.

He’s holding a glass in one hand and has a polishing rag thrown over his shoulder which only brings attention to the beautifully sculptured muscles of his arms. There’s a dark shadow of a beard covering his jaw and he has apparently just cut his hair, because gone are the strands falling on his forehead and obscuring his brows.

Gods, has he always had such beautiful cheekbones? Why would a man even need cheekbones like that-

Her sloppy train of thoughts stops abruptly as Gendry slowly sets the glass down on the counter and, equally slowly, the corners of his mouth rise up. The smile is tentative, almost shy; but paired with how intense his stare is, something very warm and very unnerving sparks alive deep in Arya’s belly.

‘’Well, hello milady. What a coincidence.’’

She used to dream about him, smiling at her like that, looking at her like that. Pray for him to notice her, even though she knew full well it was impossible. For some deeper meaning to ring underneath the playful nicknames he was constantly showering her with. 

She’s gonna savor this moment of triumph, every single delicious second of it.

Arya tilts her head a little to the left side, exposing the line of her neck and she curves her lips into the sweetest of beams; she curls one of her long brown strands around her finger and watches as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down when he swallows.

‘’What a coincidence indeed.’’

Suddenly, she’s not so angry at Dany anymore.

*

The Arya Stark living in his memory was all faint freckles, skinned knees, and bony elbows; constantly following him and Jon like a little lost duckling, whining and pleading until they let her perch on top of one of their bikes’ handlebars and took her wherever they went.

To be honest, it was never bothering Gendry as much as everyone clearly thought it should’ve; Arya was a funny and bright kid, and easy to please. He thought she just wanted to feel included and noticed, which couldn't have possibly been easy in a house so fully packed with kids and with a sister as wholly perfect as Little Miss Sunshine Sansa. Arya would’ve probably been much happier if she had been born a boy, but, unfortunately for her, fate had made her a girl and thus automatically kind of uncool to associate with for her brothers.

But Gendry himself does not have a sister, let alone a younger one, and Arya felt more like a buddy than a sister anyway, especially while she was sitting on the porch of Starks’ summer villa with a baseball cap on her head and teaching him how to cheat at poker, snoring into her lemonade when he failed miserably every time.

There was fierceness in her, bright like a flame and he found it pretty hard not to admire that. So he would give her his attention and bicker with her, tug on her unevenly cut hair and call her milady until she was chasing him around the garden with Catelyn’s rose-cutting scissors. But to be completely honest, she did kinda blend into the bigger picture it the end; he remembers her as just one of the Starks, just Jon’s little cousin and Robb’s little sister, just another pair of small hands sticky with ice cream and another laughter ringing on the corridors of the house that Gendry used to visit so often it felt almost like his own. 

But jokes on him, as one beautiful autumn afternoon, Ned Stark died in a terrible car accident on his way home from work and thus the idyll ended as abruptly as it had begun when Jon had sat down next to Gendry in class on the first year of fourth grade. The last time Gendry saw Arya was during the funeral; with red-rimmed eyes, she was clutching Jon’s hand and pretending she was not crying as if her sheer will power could stop fat tears rolling down her cheeks. The whole family relocated to Riverlands soon after, Gendry picked up more and more odd jobs, and kept himself busy. With time, the summers he spent with Starks slowly started to feel more like a pleasant dream than like something that truly happened. He reads about the family in the morning newspapers sometimes, grinning at the ridiculous rumors surrounding them like a mist and he’s sure it’s about how deep his relationship with any of them is ever gonna get.

Until twenty-years-old Arya Stark hops on the barstool on his shift and orders a drink and his perfectly orderly world gets turned upside down when he glances at her profile illuminated with laser lights and his stomach does a somersault.

Because Arya is not a seven-years-old with grass stains on her skin and missing teeth anymore. 

She comes over every Friday for two months, always taking the same seat and downing drink after drink, chatting with him about everything and anything as her eyes are twinkling in the half-shadow of the bar and their fingers not-so-accidentally meet when he hands her the glass. She’s always alone and always dressed up in a way which is clearly a mature version of her primary school tomboy attire – off-shoulder loose t-shirts and skin-tight ripped jeans paired with motorcycle boots and nonchalance that somehow makes her whole outfits far sexier than they have any right being. There are dark tattoos peeking from underneath her clothes and he wants nothing more in his life than to trace their outline with his tongue, to taste her skin and investigate how far down her chest her lovely blush travels.

It’s excruciating, really; she’s updating him on Jon in the military, Robb in the law school and Sansa’s disastrous love life, flashing him with the delicate underside of her wrists as she raises the glass to her red-painted lips. Red-painted_. Check it out, Gendry; Arya Stark with lipstick on_,_ can you imagine_? Arya Stark, swaying her hips to the rhythm of the music as she makes her way towards him. Arya Stark, still long-legged and freckled like a fawn, but graceful like one too.

She admits that she did give in to her mother’s insistent pleas and did ballet for a few years, entranced with the flexibility and strength it required and Gendry has to clench his jaw real hard at that, trying not to imagine her arched back and legs opened in a split, the smooth curve of her spine and how it would feel under his fingers.

He has never felt such electricity cracking in the air with anyone. He has never wanted any woman so badly. And to make matters even worse, he realizes that in addition to all this chemistry, he truly likes talking to Arya; she’s even brighter now, whip-smart and cheeky, her dry, dark humor matching his. It would be truly easy to befriend her, to invite her to Hot Pie’s for six-cheeses pizza or to the football match. There would be nothing hard about it -

-if only he did not go to bed every night and wrap his fingers around his cock, imagining thrusting into her agile body above his, that’s it.  


_It’s only a matter of time, though. – _he repeats to himself over and over again, hopefulness mixed with desperation. Not to sound too cocky, but even if he is down-right obvious in his interest, Arya’s far from subtle either. So, whatever there is between them, surely will come to the conclusion soon, one way or another.

She does not prove him wrong.

‘’Will you dance with me?’’ – she asks oh-so-sweetly one night and that’s how he knows it’s a trap, that’s how he knows he ought to better flee than spend another second looking into her grey eyes.

Laser lights bounce and flutter on her skin, making her look ethereal, otherworldly. Her hair is so long now, longer than even Sansa’s used to be; the tips of her tresses caress the small of her back like he wishes his hands could.

Gone is childhood from her bones and gone are her childish ways. She’s still honest – she would never lie to his face, not outright at least, of that he’s sure. But in this foggy area where they standing right now, where no yes/no questions are asked and no straightforward answers demanded… here, his little minx can tease him and play with him like with a mouse. Can lick her lips with her sharp-tipped tongue and follow his every movement with her eyes surveying him head-to-toe. Can take his hand and pull him on the dancefloor and then move her body closer to his body, so close, that he can feel the sharp arches of her hipbones and her breasts pressed flat against his ribs.

And he lets her do that, oh he would gladly let her far more than that. Blood boiling in his veins, he places his hands on her hips and, when she laces her hands behind his neck, they start to sway. 

*

‘’Can I kiss you?’’ he murmurs under his breath, cradling her head in his hands and caressing her cheeks with his thumbs. His eyes are dark like the sky before a storm, their brilliant blue swallowed by black as he leans closer and closer, his breath hot on her skin, the tip of his nose brushing hers.

Strangers dance around them, forcing her to melt into him; with her fingers hooked on his belt loops, she can feel him growing hard, she can feel his heart beating, she can get lost in all of that.

And she _wants_, she just wants him so badly that her hands shake and her knees go weak.

Gently, slowly, she raises on her tip-toes, the way she used to go on pointe once upon a time.

Their lips collide.

The rest is history.

*

He does not bother to make up any bullshit excuses as he invites her to come over to his flat and she does not ask about anything either; just nods quickly and tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, fishing her phone from her pocket to call them an Uber.

They stumble into his apartment building in a haze of heated kisses and eager hands, bumping into the walls and almost falling down the stairs as their legs tangle. Gendry ends up picking Arya up halfway, swallowing her protests against his lips and blindly searching for the keys in his pocket with one hand while holding her up with another.

She tastes like whiskey and smells like honey and fresh sweat, and there is nothing fragile or delicate about her, not in the slightest. There are lean muscles dancing underneath her pale skin as she coils around him, tugging his shirt off him and pressing small, burning kisses along the line of his neck, occasionally nipping on his skin.

And he suddenly fears he’ll never want anyone, anything else, now that he has her sprawled underneath him, with her pupils blown wide and her lips kissed swollen. It’s honestly terrifying, this hunger for her; so strong and so foreign and so incomparable to whatever he felt before.

Arya scratches across his back and whines softly as he pulls the cups of her bra down, and this pain mixes with the pressure of his erection straining against the zipper of his jeans and the pleasure of closing his mouth around her nipple and _gods damn it_, what did this woman do to him? The room’s spinning, his whole body is trembling with anticipation and it’s like he’s fourteen again, hidden in the bushes behind the school with Jeyne Heddle all over … Only better and sharper and more intense. And if Arya will continue to make those needy noises and pull on his hair like she’s doing it right now, he’ll be finished even quicker than he was with Jeyne.

She sneaks her hands in-between them to caress him through the material of his pants and his playful nip on her ear turns into a full-blown bite, with the irony taste of blood blooming in his mouth. As he quickly pulls back, mumbling a string of swears and apologies, she slowly raises her fingers to her damaged flesh, a few scarlet drips smearing on her skin and her eyes round and wide with surprise.

‘’Gods damn it, Arya, I’m _so_ sorry-‘’

‘’Shut up.’’ She sounds breathless and suddenly her hands are on his shoulders and she’s pulling him back down, her kisses frantic and bruising; she skillfully unbuckles his belt in mere seconds and, as some minuscule part of his brain starts to wonder _just_ _where did she learn that,_ a growl escapes from his lips.

He presses her down, caging her body with his and his head drowns in awe as she sighs deeply, baring her throat to him when her back arches as deeply as possible.

‘’Oh, you like that, don’t you?’’ his voice is so soft now, he hardly recognizes it; it comes out more like a purr than anything else.

‘’May-be.’’ She manages to stutter in-between moans, her whole body sliding up and down with the movements of their hips. Gendry doesn’t think he has dry-humped anyone ever since he turned sixteen, but he somehow cannot find a will to tear himself away from her, if only to peel their clothes off. ‘’Do you mind?’’

Arya Stark, head held high and striding towards him through the crowd like a queen.

Arya Stark, flashing him a lopsided grin and raising her hands from his shoulder and placing them on the pillow above her head, wrists-up and fingers laced together; stretching her body on his bed like a cat basking in the afternoon light. Her lacy bra is pushed halfway-down her abs, her hair has formed a dark halo around her blushed face and she’s biting on her lips delicately and _gods,_ fuck Gendry because he finds himself wanting her as he never wanted anything else in his life.

‘’Abso-fucking-lutely not.’’ He locks his hand around both her wrists easily, pinning them down and his eyes almost roll to the back of his head when her breathing instantly quickens and she pushes her breasts up.

She has a wreath of blue winter roses tattooed across her ribs, and, when he pulls her pants down, there are little white-and-yellow flowers blooming on her hip. He would’ve never pegged her for a floral kind of girl, but well, he should’ve known from the start she will be full of surprises. He kinda wants to ask about them and he probably would, if only his fingers did not slip from her hipbone to the dip underneath it. Her skin’s so soft there that it’s almost silky to the touch; goosebumps appearing instantly when he leans his head down to press a kiss below her navel.

‘’I would’ve tied you up, if you wanted to.’’ He murmurs and she shivers almost violently in response. ‘’Because I need both of my hands, milady. But-‘’

‘’But?’’ she inquires and he almost chuckles at the displeasure in her voice.

‘’But unfortunately, I’m not prepared for the occasion. And I would rather not leave you to try to find something now. ’’ He admits softly, sliding up again to kiss her slowly, caressing her breasts until her coaxes a sigh from her. Somehow, at some point, the slowed the tempo and now there’s less desperation and more heat between them as Arya’s eyelids flutter delicately and her arms tremble when she cups his face in her head.

‘’I guess you just need to be ready for the next time.’’ She pants, his grey eyes dark and narrowed with mirth.

_Oh, hell yeah, he damn well will be. _

He flashes her a grin and raises one of her hands to his lips, pressing a chaste kiss to her knuckles.

‘’As milady commands.’’

*

It turns out he truly needs both of his hands; specifically, to hold her hips down when he presses his tongue in-between her folds and flicks it in a way which is nothing less than splendid.

If Arya didn’t feel as good as she does, she would be probably at least a bit irritated, because _of course he’s good at giving head_. She could’ve known this years ago if not for stupid Riverrun, she’s sure of it now.

But well, better to focus on the present than to dwell on the past long-forgotten. Especially when the present is so delicious.

It feels endless, whatever he’s doing to her; the never-ending build-up of pleasure to the point when it becomes painful and, in a haze, she sinks teeth in the flesh of her own shoulder not to whimper. At that, Gendry’s face emerges from in-between her tights and he grabs her chin, forcing her head up almost harshly.

‘’Don’t. I want to hear you.’’ He barks, before slipping his fingers inside her. She’s trying to keep her eyes opened, cause he really does look magnificent, kneeling in-between her spread legs with this intense look of concentration written on his face and eyes pitch-black, but then he lowers down and hooks one of her calves on his shoulder to gently bite the inside of her tight while he’s still pumping his fingers in and out of her and she’s absolutely sure her brain will soon melt and drip through her ears.

So she shuts her eyes close and hears nothing, but her own breath turning into soft, shallow pants and the complete nonsense that escapes from her lips until the release catches her off-guard and her back collapses on the mattress, and Gendry crawls on top of her, naked and warm and tenderly caressing her hair until her aftershocks die down.

‘’You’re so beautiful.’’ He whispers against the hollow of her throat and there is something dangerously alike to tears burning her eyes when she opens them and finds his stare. There’s lust – there’s his length pressed against her tight, her taste on his lips, her nipples brushing against his chest.

And there’s – something else entirely, as the tips of her fingers dance along the strong line of his jaw and he’s wiping sweat from her brow with the edge of his discarded t-shirt. They will worry about it later thou. It is not a time, nor a place.

Tonight is for wrapping her legs around his hips, pressing him to her and giggling at his groan. Tonight is for this giggle to suddenly turn into a moan when he growls and circles her overstimulated clit.

*

‘’May I?’’ he’s asking her, his nose brushing the shell of her ear and his fingers knuckle-deep again in this silky heat of her. Arya crooks her head slightly to face him directly and there is the sweetest, softest smile painted on her half-opened lips. Coming down from her peak and already climbing up again, she’s pliant underneath his touch, a little less eager and tense but so, so incredibly responsive it simply blows his mind.

Gendry, on the other hand, feels dangerously crazy with want.

‘’Yes, please.’’ She hums, pressing the side of her face against his palm and almost lazily meeting the thrusts of his fingers with the sway of her hips. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that.’’

‘’Consent’s sexy, haven’t you heard?’’ there must be a pack of condoms somewhere in his bedside table drawer, even if it seems to be thoroughly buried underneath the insane amount of junk. Of course, it would be far easier not to search for it blindly, but it would also require tearing his eyes away from Arya’s amused smirk and that’s the sacrifice he refuses to make.

She leans a little bit on her left side to give his fingers a better angle and he’s so gonna make a mental note of that. In fact, he plans to burn the whole thing onto the hard drive of his brain; the sound and feel of her, the sight she makes. There is nothing between them that could be described as permanent or set in stone, so just in case this is the last time he has her, he plans to make it count.

As he’s sliding the condom on, something flickers in Arya’s eyes, as if the light switched off and on again.

‘’Let me know if you want me to stop, ‘kay? Any time.’’ he warns, positioning above her and she bites on her lip, nodding.

‘’Okay. Gendry-‘’

‘’Hmm?’’

‘’Would you do something for me?’’

Well, at this point there are not many things he wouldn’t, truth to be told.

‘’Sure.’’ It almost takes him by surprise, how tender he sounds. How tender he feels. All more shocking is the sudden wave of lust when she props herself up on her elbows, takes his hand in hers and loosely curls his fingers around her throat, closing them on the column of her neck.

‘’Hold me like that, please.’’ She pleads unabashedly, staring right at him with her half-lidded eyes, her own hand stills on top of his, keeping it in place.

And maybe it’s her _please _that finally undoes him, so feather-like and breathy, maybe it’s the choking – gods know why, as he has never felt it’s something that can possibly turn him off – or maybe it’s just Arya, Arya by herself and nothing else – regardless of the reason, gentleness is, once again, thrown out of the window when he pushes inside her and it feels like heaven and hell all at once.

Once he starts to thrust, all his concentration and willpower goes into controlling the pressure of his finger against her throat, so as not to cut off her air supply, but the rest is just pure instinct. He buries to the hilt in her wet heat, still slick from her release and tight like a glove around his cock and she squirms, the balls of her feet sliding on the sheets before she raises her legs up and wraps them around his waist; the change of angle making them both swear at the same time and then laugh breathlessly. He cannot kiss her properly like that, but he does anyway; sloppily and clumsily, open-mouthed, with their teeth and chins clashing awkwardly.

There is a mirror hanging on the wall opposite the bed and, when he raises his head up and catches his own reflection, some idea sparks alive in his brain.

He slides out of her, kissing her protests silent.

‘’Arya, turn around.’’ There is time for courtesies and time to forget them and she’s apparently fine with him not asking cause she obliges instantly, rolling on her belly and letting him pull her up until she’s kneeling in front of him. He loops his arm around her waist, drumming on the smooth skin of her belly with the tips of her fingers and using his other hand to brush her sweet-smelling locks away and bite into the junction of her shoulder and neck.

‘’Look at yourself, c’mon’’ he urges her, grinning in triumph when her eyes find the mirror and her jaw goes slack.

She looks so petite against his hulking frame like that, so pale and perfectly undone, with dark marks on her neck and messy hair. Her eyes, round and wide. Lips slightly parted. Cheeks blushed. Lithe and slim and pressed to him as closely as possible.

He could stare at her forever, look at her forever and never get enough.

‘’Arya, you’re so beautiful, so beautiful.’’ And she is, she really is, dangerously so. He fills her up again and her head falls backward, resting against his shoulder.

‘’Oh gods, oh gods, yes, please.’’ She’s whimpering softly, somehow managing to meet every single of his thrust, sinking down onto him so sinfully that he’s afraid he’ll bite her too hard again if his mouth will in any close proximity to her skin.

She’s reaching up to tangle her fingers in his hair, tugging on the strands in a way that makes him speed up involuntary, his hand abandoning her waist to caress the length of her front and settle on her neck again. Her lashes flutter, their noses bumping when he lowers her head to kiss her.

‘’Gendry, I- I can’t- I-‘’ – Arya moans and he gets what she means. She’s trembling like a leaf on the wind against him, her legs buckling underneath her weight and with nothing to grab for support. Her inner muscles clench around his length almost painful and he realizes that whether or not she can remain in position any longer doesn’t matter anyway; he won’t be able to last much more either, not with this angle and with her ass pressed against him like that.

So he curls his fingers around her throat just a little tighter, just to make her gasp for breath and slides his other hand down from her hipbone, in-between her folds to stroke her clit the way she liked earlier; all lazy and light, completely at odds with how hard he pounds into her.

‘’Come for me,’’ Gendry commands into her ear, only it does not sound like a command at all; while the words are harsh, his voice is soft, all pleading. – ‘’C’mon, love, come for me.’’

And so Arya does, with the relieved cry that undoes him, making stars explode in front of his very eyes when he follows a second later.

He collapses on top of her, only having enough reflex to prop himself on elbows so as not to squish her underneath him; he rests his forehead in-between her shoulder blades, listening to her long, soft pants and feeling how they tremble together, his cock still half-hard inside her.

He kinda never wants to move from this spot until the end of his life.

‘’Fuck.’’ She murmurs quietly against the pillow and he chuckles at that. _Fuck_, indeed. 

*

Arya wakes up deliciously aching and alone.

She is literally cocooned in sheets, so it takes her some time to untangle her limbs and prop herself up into the sitting position. The alarm clock is blaring 11:15 with fluorescent red numbers and yep, there goes her morning lecture. She cannot even find a will to care about it – not, when she stretches out so that her joins could pop into place and notices faint bruising around her wrists where Gendry grabbed her the night before.

Silently congratulating herself from sneaking underneath him to take a shower when she awakened from her post-coital nap, she hops onto the floor. There is a shirt and a pair of clean boxers folded on the chair next to the bed so obviously left there for her that something dangerously alike to a delighted giggle escapes from her lips when she puts the clothes one, combing through her hair with her fingers and wincing at the knots.

A delicious and somehow familiar smell of butter and garlic is hanging in the air, luring her to the kitchen- but instead of entering, she stops on the threshold, quietly leaning against the door and smiling involuntarily.

In the daylight, Gendry looks younger somehow; almost boyish, when he’s sitting by the table and flipping through the worn-out copy of Phillip Pullman’s Northern Lights, his reading glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose constantly. He’s shirtless and she can see the angry-red marks of her nails on his shoulders, which makes her blush a little.

‘’Good morning.’’ She calls quietly, but he spooks anyway, the book slipping from his hands to his lap when he whips his head in her direction.

‘’Hi.’’ He breathes out and how is that the same guy that pulled her up yesterday so she could watch in the mirror as he’s fucking her? How is that even possible? ‘’Did you sleep well?’’

She nods in response, padding to check on the contents of the pan standing on the stove and almost squealing in delight.

‘’Shakshuka eggs! I can’t believe you remembered.’’

‘’Duh, you were obsessed with them. I was just hoping you didn’t change your culinary tastes so much.’’

He loads her a plate-full and they eat in silence, chewing their respective eggs and stealing glances at each other like blushing teenagers. She notices how his eyes keep on fixating on her neck and she supposes she really ought to wear a scarf before meeting Sansa later in the day, or else she will have to answer numerous questions about fingerprint-shaped bruises around her throat.

When they finish, he reaches for her hand and takes in in his, and just as she’s about to tell him to _please, just stop fretting, _the corners of his mouth shot up and he straight-up beams at her.

‘’It was good, wasn’t it? Us, together.’’

More like mindblowing, but she won’t say it to him… yet, at least. Everything feels so much different now, with this itching need driving her nuts gone. Now, the pull between them is delicate like Chinese porcelain.

And Arya finds herself not wanting to screw this up. Not only because he’s incredible in bed and the sex was fantastic. But also –

Also because he got up earlier and for sure went to the farmer’s market on the nearby street to make her favorite childhood dish, because there is absolutely no way he had all those vegetables in his fridge. And also because, before they fell asleep, he tucked her in and kissed the crown of her head, whispering to her how wonderful she feels and how beautiful she is. And also because they smell the same now, like his herbal shower gel and his sheets and she cannot stop sniffing her hair.

Also, he’s smiling at her so sheepishly now. And promised to tie her up.

She wants to curl on his lap and ask him to read to her. She wants to wake up next to him next time. She can’t wait for him to touch her again.

So, for all those reasons and more, she bites on her lip and squeezes his hand, letting grin bloom on her face.

‘’Real good, Gendry. We’re real good.’’

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my self-indulgent fantasy here. Please, drop me a comment down below, I will be eternally grateful <3


End file.
